Work Futures Research Centre

People

The WFRC is coordinated by a core group of Directors supported by a wider Steering Group and Members, drawing in diverse expertise and interests from across the University of Southampton.

Directors

Pauline Leonard

Pauline Leonard

Pauline is a Professor of Sociology in the Department of Sociology, Social Policy and Criminology at the University of Southampton. She is also a Director of the Web Science Institute, University of Southampton. Her research interests are in work, skills and organizational change, and the impacts these have on employees from diverse backgrounds, whether this be gender, race and ethnicity, social class or age. Recent projects have focused on the impact of new digital technologies on the engineering profession; smart cities and infrastructure; youth employability in UK’s regional labour markets; and international migration to China.

Rebecca Taylor

Rebecca Taylor

Rebecca is a Lecturer in Sociology in the Department of Sociology, Social Policy and Criminology at the University of Southampton. Her research interests are in conceptualizing paid and unpaid work, digital labour within and beyond the platform economy, organizational change and the delivery of public services by the public, private and third (NGO) sector. Recent projects have focused on employee driven innovation in healthcare, technology enabled distributed teams, the changing nature of unpaid work, meaningful work in the third sector and the experiences of UK employment services providers.

Mina Beigi

Mina Beigi

Mina is an Associate Professor of OB and HRM in Southampton Business School and the Research Integrity Champion for Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Southampton. Mina serves as the Associate Editor of Human Relations and has served as the Associate Editor of Human Resource Development Review 2017-2020. Mina’s research focuses on understudied careers, success in contemporary careers, and work-nonwork interface. Her recent projects have focused on work-family interface and boundaryless career success among world-known distinguished professors, and career trajectories of female internet taxi drivers in Iran. Mina is now engaged with a project in which she examines extreme career success among Nobel Laureates in Science.

Michail Veliziotis

Michail Veliziotis

Michail is an Associate Professor of Human Resource Management within the Southampton Business School at the University of Southampton. His main teaching and research interest is the understanding of how labour market and workplace institutions shape (and/or are shaped by) the work experiences of employees, the performance of firms, and the comparative standing of national labour markets. He has recently engaged in research projects examining the relationship between trade unions, HRM practices, and productivity in British workplaces, the cross-national differences in job quality, and the new national minimum wage and overall institutional framework of the Greek labour market.

Steering group

Silke Roth

Associate Professor in Sociology, Department of Sociology, Social Policy and Criminology.

Research interests: Non-governmental organisations, volunteering, inequality

Darja Reuschke

Associate Professor in Human Geography, Department of Geography and Environmental Science.

Research interests: Self-employment, homeworking, housing.

Jenny Fleming

Professor of Criminology, Department of Economic, Social and Political Sciences.

Research interests: Policing, gender, organisational culture.

Jane Parry

Lecturer in HRM and Organisational behaviour, Southampton Business School.

Research interests: Inequalities, occupations, workplaces.

Charlie Walker

Associate Professor in Sociology, Department of Sociology, Social Policy and Criminology.

Research interests: Masculinities, youth, postsocialism.

Maria Villares-Varela

Associate Professor in Sociology, Department of Sociology, Social Policy and Criminology.

Research interests: Migration, migrant entrepreneurship, family businesses.

Dan Ashton

Associate Professor of Cultural and Creative Industries, Winchester School of Art

Research interests: Creative Industries, Digital Labour, Entrepreneurship